People Continue to Say Police Are There to Protect You
Police Have No Duty to Protect You, Federal Court Affirms Yet Again
Following last February's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, some students claimed local government officials were at fault for failing to provide protection to students. The students filed suit, naming six defendants, including the Broward school district and the Broward Sheriff's Office , as well as school deputy Scot Peterson and campus monitor Andrew Medina.
On Monday, though, a federal judge ruled that the government agencies " had no constitutional duty to protect students who were not in custody."
This latest decision adds to a growing body of case law establishing that government agencies — including police agencies — have no duty to provide protection to citizens in general:
"Neither the Constitution, nor state law, impose a general duty upon police officers or other governmental officials to protect individual persons from harm — even when they know the harm will occur," said Darren L. Hutchinson, a professor and associate dean at the University of Florida School of Law. "Police can watch someone attack you, refuse to intervene and not violate the Constitution."
The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government has only a duty to protect persons who are "in custody," he pointed out.
Moreover, even though the state of Florida has compulsory schooling laws, the students themselves are not "in custody":
"Courts have rejected the argument that students are in custody of school officials while they are on campus," Mr. Hutchinson said. "Custody is narrowly confined to situations where a person loses his or her freedom to move freely and seek assistance on their own — such as prisons, jails, or mental institutions."
Hutchinson is right.
The US Supreme Court has made it clear that law enforcement agencies are not required to provide protection to the citizens who are forced to pay the police for their "services."
In the cases DeShaney vs. Winnebago and Town of Castle Rock vs. Gonzales, the supreme court has ruled that police agencies are not obligated to provide protection of citizens. In other words, police are well within their rights to pick and choose when to intervene to protect the lives and property of others — even when a threat is apparent.
In both of these court cases, clear and repeated threats were made against the safety of children — but government agencies chose to take no action.
A consideration of these facts does not necessarily lead us to the conclusion that law enforcement agencies are somehow on the hook for every violent act committed by private citizens.
This reality does belie the often-made claim, however, that police agencies deserve the tax money and obedience of local citizens because the agencies "keep us safe."
Nevertheless, we are told there is an agreement here — a "social contract" — between government agencies and the taxpayers and citizens.
And, by the very nature of being a contract, we are meant to believe this is a two-way street. The taxpayers are required to submit to a government monopoly on force, and to pay these agencies taxes.
In return, these government agents will provide services. In the case of police agencies, these services are summed up by the phrase "to protect and serve" — a motto that has in recent decades been adopted by numerous police agencies.
But what happens when those police agencies don't protect and serve? That is, what happens when one party in this alleged social contract doesn't keep up its end of the bargain.
The answer is: very little.
The taxpayers will still have to pay their taxes and submit to police agencies as lawful authority. If the agencies or individual agents are forced to pay as a result of lawsuits, it's the taxpayers who will pay for that too.
Oh sure, the senior leadership positions may change, but the enormous agency budgets will remain, the government agents themselves will continue to collect generous salaries and pensions, and no government will surrender its monopoly on the use of force.
Read More :
- Police Botched the Uvalde Standoff. Now Gun Controllers Want to Give PoliceMore Power.
- Colorado Cop Sentenced to 5 Years for Breaking Old Lady's Arm and Laughing about It.
- Police Officers Threaten to Quit If the Public Keeps Demanding Accountability
- Police: We're the Experts — Don't You Dare Criticize Us
- Lack of Police Accountability Shows the "Social Contract" Isn't Working
- The Problem with "Just Do What the Cops Say and You Won't Get Hurt"
Financial Innovation or Intrusion?
Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are coming. History shows that technology has never been stopped, nor restrained, for a significant length of time.
Governor Christopher J. Waller commented on some of the risks and benefits that CBDCs can offer. He weighed ideas such as security concerns and how foreign and domestic CBDCs would impact the vital role the American dollar has on the world economy. It appears the Fed is trying to convey their careful consideration of its efficacy and usefulness. Per the Governor, in January of this year:
The Federal Reserve Board published a discussion paper on CBDCs to foster a broad and transparent public dialogue, including the potential benefits and risks of a U.S. CBDC. To date, no decisions have been made by the Board on whether to move forward with a CBDC.
He goes on to proclaim:
But my views are well known. As I have said before, I am highly skeptical of whether there is a compelling need for the Fed to create a digital currency.
Whether for show, pretending the Fed is still on the fence regarding CBDCs, or if he truly is skeptical is unclear. But governments and central planners have no limits when it comes to interfering with the economy and lives of others. When confronted with a technology that will only enhance the powers of the planner, we can be confident the planner will jump at the opportunity.
In his speech, he failed to mention other innovations that CBDCs could offer, such as the ability to track payments, block transactions at will, and set expiry dates on money itself.
If it sounds far fetched, read an excerpt from a paper published by the Bank of Canada last December:
An inconvenient aspect of physical cash is that it can be lost, and there is no way to recover it. We consider a potential feature to solve this problem for offline digital cash: an expiry date to automate personal loss recovery. With this feature enabled, digital cash could not be spent after its expiry date.
Naturally, they try justifying this by claiming:
Consumers whose digital cash expired would automatically receive the funds back into their online account without having to file a claim.
Notice the spin, that, unlike cash which can be lost, if you were to somehow lose your (presumably digital) wallet, then after a set amount of time the money expires and the individual receives the funds again.
Such situations could be useful; yet, there are two sides to every technology.
Consider the "weakening of consumer demand," according to the Fed. It's possible they will set expiry dates on CBDCs, forcing people to spend money by a set date in order to "stimulate the economy." They wouldn't admit this yet. But once the technology is in place, nightmare financial scenarios such as this could become reality, masquerading as short-term measures or necessary policy decisions.
Either way, once the wheels of progress, or devolution, are in motion, they won't be stopped. Central banks of the world will continue publishing papers on the pros and cons of CBDCs, and then one day, we'll wake up to find we're living in a cashless society.
Second Thoughts on the Circular Flow Diagram
The Circular Flow Diagram has dominated economic thought for over a century.
Yet, all along we've known its shortcomings: over-aggregation, static capital, instantaneous production, and homogeneous factors. It places consumption before production and supports a fantasy macro world where saving is destructive, deficits don't matter, and MMT makes sense.
But the economy is just too complex to grasp without some sort of simple, realistic model. Attempts to build such models have floundered. Hayek's Triangles, Böhm-Bawerk's Concentric Circles, and the Physiocratic Tableau, all leave users perplexed. The obtuse Circular Flow Diagram has simply won by default.
And what a victory! Every high school and college econ text puts it front and center. Thus, countless millions have a cartoonish mental model of the economy and fall prey to the most blatant nonsense. No wonder we're all Keynesians now!
But by using 3D graphics, we've built an Austrian-based model that's simple, rigorous, and comprehensive. We call it LinKē.
The LinKē Model illustrates the stepwise conversion of natural resources into products via a network of businesses.
Zooming in, we see that each business has specialized capital and workers to accomplish its particular task.
We have disaggregated the Circular Flow Diagram's interchangeable "labor" into specialized workers operating specific capital.
Zooming back out, we see an economy with heterogeneous capital, specialized workers, and entrepreneurial organization, converting natural resources into products per consumer desires.
LinKē visually represents the traditional factors of production, but in a more granular and realistic way. It also demonstrates the element of time as material moves through the production process.
Then by taking away all but the capital, we see the capital structure with it's various stages of heterogeneous capital.
Who could look at LinKē and imagine that arbitrarily shifting capital around might be a good idea?
Instead one wonders, "How does this amazing structure arise and what keeps it healthy?"
LinKē has many more tricks. Just as we illustrate the capital structure, we also clearly show the price structure, as well as how the price structure drives the capital structure across time.
Want to see the business cycle? No problem! LinKē videos dynamically show the misallocation of capital into a given sector, along with the migration of workers to that sector, only to be unemployed as the business cycle turns and businesses shrink during the recession.
And what about that "circular flow" of money?
We layer in streams of money going countercurrent to the products, and see price formation as well as the price structure.
Then we run the money through the banking system. LinKē illustrates traditional banking, fractional reserve banking, and central banking. In each case we turn various layers on and off to highlight the features of interest.
We also show price formation happening at the consumer level and propagating back to natural resources by way of the price structure. This allows us to clearly contrast the corresponding lack of consumer price formation in government services.
Want to see a socialist economy with a withered and distorted capital structure delivering scant and low quality products to consumers? Easy peasy.
LinKē is so clear and intuitive that we can teach capital structure, price structure, and business cycle theory to kids as young as ten.
LinKē provides the integrated framework, allowing young students to grasp all aspects of business and economics.
LinKē is at the core of Middle School MBA's NextGen curriculum.
But static pictures simply don't do LinKē justice. To truly appreciate LinKē you need to see him in action. Click here for a quick LinKē demo.
Or click here to see LinKē as part of our new video, Zero to Austrian in Twenty Minutes, which explains Austrian Business Cycle Theory to anyone in less than twenty minutes. We think of it as Economics in One Video.
It's time to end the reign of the Circular Flow Diagram and put the Austrian perspective into everyone's heads – not just academics or college grads, but every thinking human on the planet.
Helicopter Ben
Every month we see the same headlines, (price) inflation through the roof, and each new month makes a new 40-year inflation high. CNBC shares the not unexpected details:
The consumer price index, a key inflation barometer, jumped by 8.2% in September relative to a year earlier. Economists had expected an 8.1% annual increase.
Per the news release, Public Transportation up 27%, Health Insurance up 28%, and Food at work or school up a mouth watering 91%!" Surely, we cannot blame Russia, China, or the reopening of the economy.
Anecdotally, discussing with friends, family, or acquaintances these price increases reveal no one has anything positive to say regarding currency debasement. It makes society worse off by increasing disparity. It hurts the middle to poor class most, leading to desperation and much worse. Inflationism as a monetary policy is a scourge on society. Anyone saying otherwise either has not truly considered the issue or is highly paid to mask it.
Allow me to illustrate the latter category: This week Nobel Prize Winner Ben Bernanke is being awarded the honor for his work in the 1980's and his role in the Great Recession of 2007-09.
The Nobel committee doesn't provide a link to a specific paper. But a very notable one goes into great detail describing how the system works and what the future holds. The infamous: Deflation - making sure "it" doesn't happen here, courtesy of the Bank of International Settlements.
This short paper from 2002 is a must read! It is where the newly crowned Nobel Laureate discusses:
…the danger of deflation, or falling prices.
It is here, he famously wrote about the "printing press." The paragraph presented in its entirety:
Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or, today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation.
The paper delves into intellectual absurdity, illustrating many factors wrong with the economic system in which we live. Luckily, the following year, Dr. Mark Thornton authored a paper titled Apoplithorismosphobia, or "the fear of deflation." He introduces the paper:
Or, more correctly, the fear that an economy would "suffer" from falling prices, or a general decline in the prices of goods and services. It is a fear that has gripped some economists, journalists, and policymakers with a blinding strength as powerful as faith.
There are those who understand economics and those who are paid to not. Upon reading both essays, the truth should become self-evident. Society is not better now that the cost of food has doubled in price this past year. Nor is it sincere to treat this as a matter of the Fed simply controlling inflation by mathematical formula. This idea of "positive inflation" as a public good continues to be a widely accepted idea. Thus, we must reiterate, as we have for over a century now, that it is not.
With inflation at 8.2%, we could actually use a little deflation right about now. If there is any justice in the world, it will come when an Austrian authors a paper titled: "Inflation - Making Sure It Doesn't Happen Ever Again," wins a Nobel prize for their work in stopping monetary destruction once and for all.
The Alex Jones Verdict Shows the Danger of Defamation Laws
In the latest demonstration of the absurdity of defamation laws, radio show host Alex Jones has been ordered to pay $965 million to people who didn't like things Jones said about the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
In the years following the massacre, Jones repeatedly stated that he thinks the shootings were staged and that the purported parents were so-called crisis actors. (He has since said he thinks the shootings were real.) Some of Jones's listeners chose to agree with Jones's claims that the shootings did not occur, and this allegedly informed the decisions by some listeners to engage in the harassment of some of the parents of murdered children.
Essentially, Jones was found guilty of saying things that supposedly inspired other people to say cruel and disrespectful things to the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. The harassment allegedly also includes the desecration of the graves of victims.
Jones is being ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because some other people—who were not acting under any orders from Jones—allegedly committed some crimes on their own. It's difficult to see, then, how Jones actually inflicted any actual damages on his supposed "victims" in this case. If people have harassed the parents, of course, that's a crime for which the actual harassers are responsible. The real guilty parties here are the people who have committed acts of harassment. But it appears that Jones has been convicted here of simply saying things that the jury and the plaintiffs found objectionable.
[Read More: "The Dangers of Defamation Laws" by Ryan McMaken]
In a free society, a private citizen saying things that other people are free to ignore is not punishable by law. In a society which does not respect free speech, however, merely saying words is apparently grounds of levying fines of hundreds of millions of dollars. (Actual threats of violence directed at specific persons are dangerous, but are not what we are talking about here, and that's not what Jones has been accused of.)
The idea that Jones is somehow guilty for the acts of third parties he doesn't even know follows from the basic twisted logic of defamation laws. The idea of defamation as a punishable legal matter is based on the notion that people do not have free will and are not responsible for their own actions.
For example, if a stranger tells me that my neighbor is a pedophile, I have no reason to automatically believe the accuser. Yet, this is what the logic of defamation assumes. If Person A says nasty things about Person B, we are supposed to assume that people do not have the freedom to reject the accusations and ignore them. Rather, we are to assume that people are robots who believe everything they are told. Similarly, there is no reason why anyone must believe the latest theories spun by Alex Jones.
Moreover, given that people are free to ignore the accusations of Person A, it is especially absurd to assume that Person A is somehow responsible if Person C then uses the opinion of Person A as a reason to inflict some kind of harm on Person B.
The reality is that people do have a choice and don't have to believe every nasty thing some other person says. Nor are people being somehow forced to act in any particular way because someone said some cruel things about someone else.
The idea that people are responsible for their own actions apparently had no place in the court proceedings against Alex Jones, and the judgment against him is a standing threat to ordinary people who say unpopular things.
In an age when everyone who disagrees with official regime narratives is labeled a racist, a domestic terrorist, or worse, this is a dangerous development indeed. Governments have used defamation laws to silence critics, and the wealthy have long used threats of defamation suits to do the same. Naturally, Murray Rothbard opposed defamation laws and recognized they are a way for the powerful to silence the powerless:
The current system [which allows for defamation suits] discriminates against poorer people in another way; for their own speech is restricted, since they are less likely to disseminate true but derogatory knowledge about the wealthy for fear of having costly libel suits filed against them.
The Jones case is known and notable partly because he has the means to mount a sizable legal defense. Unpopular people of lesser means will fare even more poorly, and will much more easily and quickly be threatened into silence.
The answer to all this is total free speech in which people are explicitly expected to come to their own conclusions and be responsible for their own actions. As Rothbard noted: in a system of unrestricted free speech, "everyone would know that false stories are legal, there would be far more skepticism on the part of the reading or listening public, who would insist on far more proof and believe fewer derogatory stories than they do now."
Wholesale Prices in September Rise 8.5 Percent, Pointing to Continued Price Hikes
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released new Producer Price Index (PPI) data today, and it's more bad news for both business owners and consumers.
The PPI is a measure of prices at the production phase of goods and services, and is often an indicator of where consumer prices are headed. Prior to 1978, the index was known as the Wholesale Price Index.
This September, year-over-year PPI growth came in at over 8 percent for the fourteenth month in a row, reaching 8.5 percent. This was a small drop from August's year-over-year rate of 8.6 percent, but continues to suggest ongoing upward pressure in prices. The month-over-month change for September was 0.4 percent, which was up from August's month-over-month change of -0.2 percent. Movement remains upward, and from a very elevated base.
Once again, wholesale price growth was higher than "expected," since economists can now virtually always be expected to paint a rosier picture of the economy than the data ends up supporting. Instead, the data points toward continued uncomfortably high CPI inflation. According to Kiplinger:
A reading of inflation at the wholesale level surprised to the upside Wednesday, stoking fears that tomorrow's report on consumer prices will likewise show that inflation remains out of the Federal Reserve's control.
The producer price index (PPI) rose 0.4% in September, well ahead of economists' estimate for a gain of 0.2%. Year-over-year, PPI rose 8.5%, or a slight deceleration from August's increase of 8.7%.
Excluding food, energy and trade services, PPI increased 0.4% month-over-month, the largest rise since May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Year-over-year, the index rose 5.6%.
As with the Consumer Price Index, the narrative among optimistic analysists was that PPI measures would moderate in September and signal a downward turn. That does not appear to be the case so far. Indeed, consumer prices showed few signs of any significant moderation in August, as CPI inflation continued to surge near a forty-year highs. Continued growth in the PPI points toward ongoing growth in consumer prices in September as well.
Essentially, this PPI report suggests that there's still little relief in sight when it comes to rising prices. This is more bad news for Wall Street which is now desperate for a Fed pivot back to active quantitative easing and interest-rate suppression. Wall Street has become addicted to the Greenspan Put and QE in recent decades, with the extent of monetary expansion becoming one of the largest drivers of stock prices.
The S&P closed lower today for the sixth day in a row since the continued growth in jobs—reported last week—coupled with this PPI report sends the signal that the Fed is unlikely to reverse course on rate hikes in the short term.
New CPI numbers come Thursday morning.
4 Months of QT Down
The Federal Reserve continues down the asset reduction path, but how long can it last? With various thoughts about the stock market, interest rates, recession, inflation, and possibly employment, the Fed has found itself in a race of few horses, where none can emerge as winner since there is no finish line.
Last month in the article: 3 Months of QT Down, we stopped on August 31 with the Fed's total balance sheet standing at $8,826,093,000,000 ($8.26 trillion). Due to the timing of the weekly data release, as September 30 fell on a Friday, we're looking at this Thursday's data release, current to October 5.
Therefore:
- On August 31 the US Treasury (UST) balance was $5,694,997,000,000. The balance on October 5 now stands at $5,633,926,000,000 for a decrease of roughly $61 billion.
- On August 31 the Mortgage-Backed Security (MBS) balance was $2,709,288,000,000. The balance on August 31 now stands at $2,698,158,000,000 for decrease of roughly $11 billion.
After several months of official Quantitative Tightening, there are two things to notice. The UST balance has been declining. However, in the previous week as of September 28 the balance was $40 billion higher. It's unclear which month the large decrease pertained to. Still, $61 billion is relatively large considering the monthly cap is only $60 billion. Whereas the MBS balance hasn't moved by much, with $35billion as the monthly cap.
Naturally, past behavior does not indicate future performance. But when exactly will the Fed start reducing the trillion dollar mortgage balance on its books? There are now teenagers among us who might be curious why the Fed owns nearly $3 trillion of mortgage "assets," which the Fed started buying before these teenagers were ever born, ostensibly to fight a housing crisis which evidently hasn't been resolved yet.
No one can predict the hour of the crash or crisis, nor exactly what "the event" will be. Most likely there will be a bank or two who get into major trouble. Pay attention to headlines which will talk of the next "Lehman moment," or something to that effect, like this headlines CNBC had earlier in the week:
Credit Suisse 'may or may not' be a Lehman moment but something is going to break…
These headlines should continue becoming more pronounced, until eventually we get the Lehman moment they're all hoping for.
And while the Fed continues holding steady, not all central banks have. CNBC also shares what happened overseas when the Bank of England:
…was forced to intervene in the long-dated bond market after a steep sell-off of U.K. government bonds — known as "gilts" — threatened the country's financial stability.
Notice the language we've become accustomed. Due to some type of market dysfunction, the central bank was "forced to intervene" in the market. Unfortunately, they don't tell you the problem stems from prior intervention, or that more dysfunctions will arise after this new intervention.
With four months of official QT now over, look for more potential Lehman moments and more news about market failures which will be used as reasons for more intervention. So far the Fed has (somewhat) stuck to their game plan, but it's a short term game plan at best. Whatever happens, it will certainly lead to more Fed intervention and a higher balance sheet.
The REAL Cause of Death? Look in the Mirror
In 1993 the New England Journal of Medicine came out with a very well-research report called Actual Causes of Death in the United States (repeated in 2004) which stated that 70% of our diseases are lifestyle related, and that eight of the nine leading causes of death in America are lifestyle related.
What I find interesting is that when these people die, the coroners don't list their cause of death as: "Lifestyle," or "Standard American Diet." They'll say the cause of death is cancer or heart disease – you know, something they can charge you a lot of money for treating.
Why don't they say, "Cause of death: eating the wrong food, failing to take exercise, spending all day sitting down in cramped spaces without any fresh air leading to poor circulation, and poor management of stress."?
So, listen to this, when someone says: "Most people are dying of heart disease and cancer," the first response should be to say: "Well, what's causing cancer?"
We don't know?
Well then, it should be: "Cause of Death: Unknown."
You can blame diabetes for blindness since that's the number one cause of blindness in America. But diabetes is only what we would call the subsequent cause. It's not the primary cause, because the real question is: What caused the diabetes?
Virtually every non-infectious disease is the subsequent cause of lifestyle choices. And even in the case of the flu or Covid-19 or whatever else you caught, a weakened immune system left you open to infection – and that was exacerbated, if not caused, by lifestyle choices.
The human anatomy is all just a series of flowing tubes – the blood vessels, the lungs, the nerves, the alimentary canal, each of the vital organs and what have you. So long as all the tubes are flowing like a river, you're fine. But when the tubes get blocked, constricted, smashed, cut, or balloon out… then you've got your health problems.
If you had a heart attack or stroke, then you had a blood clot and couldn't get any blood up to your brain. You had a plumbing problem. You had tubes in trouble, because you ate the wrong food and got arterial plaque which thinned them out and raised the pressure until something burst.
This outlook on disease is so enlightening. An aneurysm is the result of a blood vessel tube that became weakened in its lining and ballooned. A stroke is a blood clot in a blood vessel or artery tube in the brain, shutting off blood flow and oxygen to the brain cells. Constipation is severe impaction of the intestinal tube, leading to abdominal pain. Heart disease is the blocking or obstruction of the coronary artery tubes that lead to the heart tissue.
You have congestion? That's the tubes of the lungs being backed up by excess waste products. The uncomfortable symptoms of coughing up mucous, sinus drainage, sweating and intestinal diarrhea are the body's built-in purging mechanisms for tubular drainage of acids, parasites, mucous and toxins. The common cold may be nothing more than the body's healing crisis response to a viral infection causing mucous secretions in the sinus tubes, lung tubes or intestinal tubes. If you try to stop these symptoms with pharmaceutical you may be blocking the healing process itself, as well as adding more poisonous chemicals for your body to try and purge.
Eating the wrong foods, that's going to turn your body fluids thick, over working the heart, lungs, kidneys and liver, and accumulating as sludge in the blood vessels, arteries, veins, capillaries, and micro-vascular tubing. That's gonna give you tubes in trouble.
Why aren't they teaching this outlook to our so-called medical experts by now, as well as the general public? They've had thirty years to do it. If 70% of disease is lifestyle related, then you'd think we would be spending 70% of the $4 trillion a year Americans shell out on healthcare preventing disease. That would be a sensible response to that statistic, wouldn't it?
What people are really dying from is things like their own waste matter backing up in their tubes. You're filthy inside because the sewage system that's supposed to clean all your cells isn't able to clean out your waste as quickly as you produce it. That's why fasting is all the rage these days. People are discovering that if you give the body a rest it can finally catch up with the backlog of garbage you've been accumulating as a consequence of what you've been stuffing into your mouth and clean up house.
Sadly, when most of us die, it's going to be largely our own fault! Due to our very own choices!
We can plead ignorance, of course. We can blame society, to a degree. After all, we have all been indoctrinated into believe that disease is something that just happens to us when we're unlucky. During the pandemic, when the government had the ear of the entire nation, they didn't even take the opportunity to recommend lifestyle changes and teach
people what they could do to support their immune system, or what habits to reduce or eliminate reduce their risk of complications upon contracting Covid. Plenty was known about it, but you would have heard little on it from the mainstream press. It wouldn't have helped pharma at all if they had done that, but it may have stopped the hospitals from becoming overwhelmed, and all-cause mortality would have gone down, not just mortality from Covid. "You can't heal selectively," as Charlotte Gerson used to say, "If you truly heal – everything heals."
So, ok, I admit, the government is at fault. Pharma is at fault. So is the advertising industry, and the media, and the schools, and the FDA, the CDC, and whoever came up with the food pyramid. But where's that going to get us, blaming society? We are part of society, and if we want society to be responsible, then it's high time we took responsibility for ourselves and the ones around us. It's our responsibility now to create a responsible society.
Democratic Hypocrisy in India
I was taught in childhood that Democracy is by the people, for the people, and of the people, maybe it was a goof by my teachers because what I have seen is Democracy has now become Buy the people, for the selective people, and off the people. Why do we like Democracy, what's so idiosyncratic about this system that distinguishes it from other forms of the political system? Democracy gives us freedom, the system gives us rights, and it gives hope for a liberal society. Democracy is an antonym of a Totalitarian system, maybe.
In India, politicians have so much power that they can give a person a job and can also take away his job. This is Democracy in India, the leaders here are worshipped, the normal people have to respectfully greet the politician, and people can't speak within their rights in front of any leader too, they have to speak within the ceiling set by the "people's" leader. Above all you a common man can't even reply anything to swear words of that person if you want to reach home alive. People beg in front of leaders for their basic requirements and they will act like they have done some favor by spending money on the people which is taken from the system! India isn't a democracy it tries to make itself look like one. After 75 years since independence all you will see is the rallies of politicians, the divide and rule of people in name of ethnicity, snatching people's liberty, laws applied only to common people, large assets of politicians and their money and the list can go further.
This had to happen. This will keep continuing if the system keeps giving power more and more to the government thinking that it will uplift the people. The collectivist fallacy and people still have got some hopes for improvement.
Ironically in a dictatorship, there's one dictator; a totalitarian, but in a democracy like India we have many dictators sitting. The netas who live a luxurious life, assassinate those that go against them, abuse their subordinates, make cronies fatter, can acquire as much wealth without facing consequences, steal the liberty of people, fund gangsters, etc…. The emergency of Indira Gandhi, Meat shop bans, demonetization, reservation, tax on cryptocurrency, and more examples can be given to prove the country's grip on authoritarianism.
To make it very clear, Democracy doesn't guarantee individual liberty. Democracy is one of the mediums of it. The main aim is Liberty, which is the freedom, rights, and independence of citizens. People are manipulated in such a way that they are more and more dependent on authority. The authority decides our life in many ways and one can have no clue about it. Mises and Hayek rightly rejected the concept of differentiating Political Freedom and Economic Freedom because in India there is so-called Political freedom in name of Democracy which nowadays just means voting. Mises said:
But as Hayek pointed out in 1944 in his book The Road to Serfdom, economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life that can be separated from the rest; it is the control of the means for all our ends.
It's funny when the communists of the country who are only good to show their activism on the streets and causing a disturbance in day to day life of people are seen protesting in the current system. But, what's your solution to this problem? Increase the role of the same corrupt government? No wonder, why their influence on the country is reducing which is quite a positive development in the country. But, socialism is still regarded as moral here and capitalism means evil, coming from a country that was saved by Capitalism in 1991!
Democracy is very important to the people of the country but what they don't understand is, Democracy is means but not ends. Democracy is means of Liberty and Democracy solely cannot grant freedom. Democracy is for Liberty, not the other way around! Something similar was said by Hayek in The Road to Serfdom:
Democracy is essentially a means, a utilitarian device for safeguarding internal peace and individual freedom. As such it is by no means infallible or certain. Nor must we forget that there has often been much more cultural and spiritual freedom under an autocratic rule than under some democracies and it is at least conceivable that under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.
Many intellectuals are seen criticizing the current party in power in India for becoming authoritarian but when wasn't the system authoritarian? Privatization in present or "equality" approach in past, whether from Left or Right, the country has always been authoritarian in the truest form, no need to distinguish from one another because you all are collectivist in a Brotherly Conflict!
Slow Down, Stop. Reverse!
Everyone must be wondering: How high will interest rates go? When will the stock market bottom? What does the future hold? Unfortunately, it all depends on the Fed. They can either slow down, stop, or reverse the Quantitative Tightening (QT) process. Let's see the options:
Slow Down:
So far, the Fed's balance sheet reduction effort has been crawling, only reduced by around half of the nearly $50 billion cap per month in the first three months. Should they slow the pace further, they may have to address it formally. Nonetheless, slowing the pace of QT only offers faint hope of delaying the inevitable crisis ahead.
Stop:
If the Fed were to formally stop their QT program, in order to hold the balance sheet steady, they would be in a perpetual juggling game of buying just the right amount of securities to balance off the maturing ones.
Unfortunately, whether they slow or stop QT, it won't matter. Whether the market crashes in October of this year or March in the next, the crisis is coming. Interest rates always try to revert to what they should be in a free and unhampered market. Absent the Fed actively increasing the money supply, interest rate suppression will always be a problem.
With US debt about to cross $31 trillion, there is no way the Fed would simply slow or stop QT, nor try to hold rates steady for a prolonged period of time. It wouldn't even work for long before the market collapses and the Fed loses control of rates entirely anyway.
Reverse:
Inflationism will be monetary policy so long as there is a Federal Reserve. No matter what they tell you about inflation or unemployment, and the juggling acts they play, the balance sheet is always destined to increase, and with it, all prices. Only by exponentially increasing the balance sheet can the Fed continue its interest rate suppression. Plus, the stock, bond, and housing market have been broken (because of the Fed) so it won't be long until the Fed rescues them once again.
Even the United Nations noticed, as Reuters reports:
…warned on Monday of the risk of a monetary policy-induced global recession that would have especially serious consequences for developing countries and called for a new strategy.
Quotes from their report says:
Excessive monetary tightening could usher in a period of stagnation and economic instability...
And:
Any belief that they (central banks) will be able to bring down prices by relying on higher interest rates without generating a recession is, the report suggests, an imprudent gamble…
Recessions matter: but stock portfolios and lower interest rates do too. It is only through asset purchases can the two be found again. When the time comes, they'll tell us (price) inflation is low and therefore warrants balance sheet expansion. Or they'll acknowledge inflation is high, but say it was a choice between the lesser of two evils, opting to increase the balance sheet to fight a recession at all costs.
Radley Balko Fired
Radley Balko, a defender of liberty best known for his bookRise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces, has been fired by the Washington Post. Balko writes: "So after nine years, I'm being let go by the Washington Post. This is disappointing but not surprising. In recent years, the Opinion leadership has made it increasingly difficult to do the reporting & in-depth analysis I was hired to do -- in favor of short, hot takes."
Source: https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again